Fantasy of Fire (The Tainted Accords Book 3) (12 page)

“For more than one Rotation, but not anymore,” he says darkly. “Mother … made an example.” He rubs a hand over his face, looking older than he should. “Do you remember a man named Turin?” he asks. The name does strike a chord, but I cannot place it.

“He had a young son. A daughter, too. The boy tried to remove your veil in the village?”

I gasp as the memory reaches me. The toddler who tried to lift my veil. I grasp Olandon’s forearms. “What did she do?” I ask. “Tell me!” Memories of the village girl’s slit throat flash in front of my eyes.

He winces as I dig my fingers in. I can’t loosen them because I’m in horror’s thrall. I know what happens next.

“They were slaughtered and hung from the Oscala in the First Rotation,” he says quietly.

I flinch at his words, swallowing the bile threatening to rise.

The punishment was well known on Osolis, if rarely used. The bodies were hung off the Oscala, so every Solati would get a chance to see the decaying corpses during a revolution. Turin had a wife, a son, and a daughter. Now they were all dead. A whole family. Because of me—because I wasn't there to stop my mother.

More time must pass than I realize, because suddenly Olandon is stroking my hand. “You could not have controlled what happened to Turin and his family—even if you were there,” he murmurs.

“Did the villagers stop after that?” I ask eventually. My mouth feels thick as it forms the question.

Olandon’s lips press into a grim line. “It took others, many others, until the villagers were convinced.” He looks away from me and clears his throat. “The villages are not the happy places you believed them to be. But everyone was too afraid to speak. The peasants in the Royal Rotations fare better than the rest. But not much.”

The population of Osolis was much smaller than Glacium’s. Each rotation on my home planet had a sole village. Each community was large and held all the necessary tradesmen, farmers, and craftsmen. Most were located as close as possible to a water supply, whether the man-made rivers or Lake Aveni. Why did Mother allow me to go to the village if she wanted to squeeze the life from her people? I have my answer the next moment: the peace delegation. It was all an act. But then my brother and Kedrick had toured Osolis, along with the other delegates. How did my mother orchestrate a subterfuge of this scale?

I scrunch my eyes closed. This news is so much worse than I expected. I can’t believe my brother is only telling me now. No wonder he’s so anxious to get back.

“Thank you. It cannot have been an easy tale to carry, or to share.” I kiss him on the cheek.

He doesn’t smile like I expect him to. He doesn’t quite meet my eyes. Dread pools in my chest.

“There’s more,” I say in a dull voice.

He sighs. I know that sound. It’s the weight of two worlds on his shoulders. Olandon looks at me. Grave beyond his seventeen years.

“On my travels, I came across a woman. I thought she was insane at first, but then…” His eyes flicker and he swallows hard. “Did you know Uncle Cassius has a wife?”

The aftershock of my conversation with Olandon echoes within me as I hurry to the meeting room. My people have been starving for revolutions while I pranced through their masses, completely unaware, thinking I was helping by delivering a box of apples once a week. What a fool.

And there was the small part about having an aunt I never knew about.

I’d spoken with my brother long into the night, soaking up any detail he imparted about Osolis and Uncle Cassius’s wife, Jain, who apparently looked after me as a baby. Cassius never did have an ‘O’ at the start of his name. I’d thought it was a way of telling the court he was married to my mother’s service. It didn’t happen often in our history, but it
did
happen. Usually, the ‘O’ was dropped to show you were taken. I was Olina. When I married, I’d be Lina. It was an easy way of telling who was still available. I suppose, looking back, it’s designed so emotionally embarrassing conversations can be avoided.

I throw open the door to the meeting room. The important men jump in their seats and stare as I take my seat opposite Jovan’s empty throne. Great. Now
I’m
slamming doors.

They jump again as the door behind the throne slams back. Jovan strides through, unaware—or uncaring—that he’s frightened them. The advisors fall back into their circling arguments and I sit, barely listening as I reflect on what I’ve learned about Uncle Cassius’s wife. About what she
knew.
Mother exiled her as soon as I was old enough to be left alone. Aunty Jain had known about my blue eyes. She became a dangerous liability to the Tatum.

I have no memories of her face, but then I doubt my veil was taken off much. I spent years with a woman who, from Olandon’s account, may have loved me. Someone may have
loved
me. That news rocked me as much as Olandon’s other startling revelations.

He said she’d asked him to tell me a story. One she’d told me as a toddler. I’d known the ending, though I couldn’t ever recall hearing it.

“What do you think, Tatuma?” Roscoe asks.

I sit up straight. “Sorry?” There’s a smattering of muffled laughter, not all of it nasty. I don’t think I’m alone in my inattention. A man several seats to my left looks to have fallen asleep on his hand.

“Perhaps the Tatuma had a late night?” A snide voice speaks. “Now I think of it, where has the Tatuma been these last few days?”

I turn to Blaine. “I’m sure if the king wanted you to know, he would tell you,” I say sweetly.

Drummond barks with amusement. “She’s got you there, Blainey boy.” This raises Drummond three pegs in my book, giving him a total of three pegs.

* * *

“What is the matter?” Jovan speaks into my ear. I barely refrain from jumping out of my skin. I nearly walked right past him on my way to our table. I search the immediate area in the food hall. No one is close enough to listen.

“Jovan,” I say. I breathe in his scent; it has a way of settling me.

I hear him inhale deeply. “I could listen to you say that all day,” he says casually.

His name? He likes the sound of it? If he doesn’t move away, I might be convinced to say it again. His smell is driving me insane.

“Are you worried about tomorrow?” he asks.

Tomorrow! Olandon’s news pushed my ‘unveiling’ from my mind. I shake my head, rattled by the extra stress. “I’m … preoccupied by my brother’s tidings of Osolis,” I say. Jovan gestures me to the wall. He stands like a shield, blocking me from the view of the food hall as I relate the most important aspects to him.

He abandons his protective role as I finish and leans on the wall beside me. My view is now unobstructed and I see we stand by Arla’s table. My jaw drops when I see Jacquiline next to her. Fiona was right! Jacquiline is hanging around Arla. But Jacky hates her! The whole situation is baffling. Arla looks my way, posture tight. It looks like I’m on her naughty list again. She’s always viewed Jovan as her property. As the highest-ranking Bruma female here, being Drummond’s daughter, she’s probably been groomed for the position of queen. The woman, a prior bed-partner of the king, had not so nicely warned me to stay away from him shortly after my arrival on Glacium. I’d heard someone call her a gold-digger before. The description fit. We’d had many run-ins, and I’d always found great humor in our exchanges. Which is why the white-hot anger in my stomach takes me completely by surprise. Apparently, I now care very much.

“How could your mother treat her people this way?”

I hear Jovan’s furious question and try to rein in my jealousy as well as I can. It’s an entirely new experience for me. I almost feel sick.

“I don’t know,” I reply in a hollow tone. His fingers rest beside mine, just touching the side of my hand. I hope Arla sees it.

“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known. This is on your mother’s shoulders,” he continues.

He’s right. A part of me knows what he says is true. Even if I’d known what she was doing, any attempt to stop her would have resulted in my execution.

“And this Aunty Jain of yours had information on your father?” he asks.

“Not much,” I admit. “Only that he was a good singer. Landon said she often lost track of her thoughts. He thought she might have been badly tortured. Said there were scars on her hands.”

He inspects the hilt of his sword with disinterest. “Since you returned, I’ve been expecting you to check my archives daily.”

I laugh shortly. “With all that spare time?”

He concedes this with a chuckle, pushing off the wall.

I double-check to make sure the area is clear. The assembly always gives the king a wide berth, perhaps a remnant of his lengthy self-imposed isolation. “Jovan … I know you have trouble with my brother. But could he search the archives in my stead?” I ask. “He’ll have strict instructions.”

“It’s not that I dislike him, Olina. It’s that he glares at me every time I look at you,” he says. “Which is very often.” His tone is irritated amusement. A reluctant smile spreads across my face. Maybe it’s because he pointed it out before, but suddenly the sound of my name on his lips makes my stomach clench.

“You’re right.”

“Of course.” He says. “What about?”

“What?” I ask.

He gives me an odd look. “You said, ‘you’re right.’ I asked what about?”

I freeze. Veni, I said that aloud? I open my mouth to lie, but a grating giggle from Arla stops me. My mouth snaps shut. I know it’s petty. It should be beneath me. But I can’t see Jovan with her. Maybe not anyone. Not until I’m away from Glacium and not destined to return. He deserves a happy life, but I can’t bear to see it.

I take a deep breath, knowing I’m a horrible person for encouraging this.

“I like hearing you say my name too,” I say.

I nearly run to my seat at the throne table, placing both hands on my cheeks to cool them. What was I thinking? And more importantly, what was
he
thinking now? I hadn’t waited around to assess his reaction, or hear his reply. Why did I do that?

Olandon’s comments last night should have sharpened my resolve against Jovan. In effect, the opposite was true. All day, a part of me yearned for him. To lean on him for a while and share my troubles. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut as guilt floods through me. No one told me these feelings would be so unshakeable and so
permanent
. No mother, or aunty, or friend, had ever shown me the force of such caring.

I don’t want what I feel for Jovan to stop. And I should.

* * *

I roll onto my other side again, then onto my back. This is ridiculous. Well, maybe not. I suppose a sleepless night is warranted considering I’ll be forever changing the course of my life tomorrow.

A knock sounds at my door. I reach for the veil, sitting up in bed as the door creaks open. Thugs don’t knock. Is it one of the guards?

“You awake?” Jovan asks, closing the door behind him.

“You knocked,” I gasp. “I knew you could knock!” Silence is my only answer. Why do I get the feeling he’s holding back his laughter?

“I thought you might still be up,” he says, sitting on the edge of my bed.

“What do the guards think when you come up here?” I ask. I shove the veil back under my pillow.

His huge shoulders shrug. “I get my watch to go down and give them orders to move.”

I shift back and lean against the plush, warm pillows. “You don’t worry they’ll talk?”

He doesn’t dignify me with an answer. I narrow my eyes as another thought occurs to me.

“You’re not here to check if I’ve run away, are you?”

He kicks off his boots and moves next to me, sitting in the same position against the wall. I hold my breath, heart accelerating at his closeness. I welcome the feeling of yearning rising inside of me.

“Would you believe me if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind?” He turns toward me in the darkness.

“No.”

He laughs. “One of the best qualities you possess is a desire to be your strongest self.”

It makes me traitorously happy to hear his words.

He bends one knee, resting one massive hand over the top. “When you came to realize running away was a potential weakness, you eliminated it. It was quite impressive to see. I wish my advisors could do it.”

We fall into a silence as I turn his comments over in my mind. Well, half of my mind does. The other half watches his hand lying palm up between us. Does he want me to hold it? What if he doesn’t and I put my hand there, and then he feels like he has to hold it?

“Is it gone then? My weakness?” I ask, frowning.

“Can the scars of your childhood ever truly be gone?” He clears his throat. “I know mine aren’t. Have you eliminated the running away, only to develop another way of coping? Or worse still, will you keep it inside until it changes you?” He swallows, and I barely breathe. Something inside me breaks. Not because he’s outlining my future. I know I’ll never be my mother. It breaks because he’s talking about himself.

“You speak as if you know,” I say.

He exhales slowly. “After the deaths of my mother and father I did the exact same. I didn’t run away. Not in the literal sense. Though by shutting myself away I essentially was. I’ve always been solitary, but not reclusive. I obtained and ruled the kingdom fiercely during this time. But away from those duties … There were not many I could tolerate other than Kedrick, Roscoe, and others who had been close to my father.”

I know Blaine is one of these people. My heart sinks at how ingrained the slippery traitor is in Jovan’s past. How he’s taken advantage of Jovan’s previous grief to secure the king’s favor. How am I ever going to get Jovan to listen?

Jovan’s hand clenches. “It happened so gradually I didn’t see I was changing, or didn’t want to. No one dared to tell me because I was king. It wasn’t until recently that I began to see my life for what it has turned into. I’ve started to feel a connection with my people again,” he says.

I glance at his hand between us and place mine inside his. He closes his eyes and a ghost of a smile lights his face. His fingers enclose my own in a warm hold.

“I know a little about your mother, but not much of your father,” I say. His smile flickers and goes out. Jovan opening up happens nearly as often as Solati asking questions.

“My father was everything I aim to be,” he says simply. I try to grasp the undercurrent in his words. “He was a great fighter, a strong and iron-fisted king, and a clear-headed, concise ruler.”

“You’re all of those things,” I say. He gives me a doubtful look and plays with my hand.

“I have a long way to go before I can claim to be close to his legacy—as I’m often reminded,” he grunts. I’m sure if it wasn’t so dark, his cheeks would be red. He’s unsure. It’s such a rare emotion for Jovan.

“How did you eventually see what you had become?” I ask to relieve his discomfort. Maybe I can apply his experience to my own situation. I haven’t felt what he’s describing. Possibly it takes time to internalize enough panic and fear for it to change who you are. What else could I possible do to replace running away?

I shudder. If Jovan hadn’t noticed what was happening to him, would he have ended up like my mother? I feel the heat from his hand clasping mine and banish that line of thought. Jovan would never let himself become that. He may have been distant and ruthless, but he wasn’t evil.

“It wasn’t a matter of how, it was a matter of
who
,” he says. “Some time ago now, a woman came to the castle and my life hasn’t been the same since.”

I stiffen, and only just keep my hand in his by resisting all instincts to do otherwise. The statement hangs heavy around us. Does he mean me? Any elation I feel is swiftly stomped and crushed by fear. I’m then acutely aware we’re in a bed for the first time since we slept together. I scramble for a change of topic.

“I can’t help thinking tomorrow is going to go horrendously wrong.” I wince at the shake in my voice. Hopefully he thinks it’s fear for tomorrow’s events.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” he answers.

Has Jovan got cold feet? A large finger across my lips stops me from speaking.